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Updated: May 20, 2025
It was clear that, in defiance of Macdonell's decree, they meant to send food supplies out of Assiniboia to support their trading-posts elsewhere. The fort at Souris was in close proximity to Brandon House on the Assiniboine, a post founded by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1794. Macdonell decided on strong action.
But, only a few miles out from Sault Ste Marie, there suddenly appeared two canoes, in one of which was Miles Macdonell. For the first time Lord Selkirk now learned of the disaster which had befallen the colony in the month of June. Macdonell had gone as far as the mouth of the Winnipeg before he learned the news.
At York Factory the Colonists had met a Hudson's Bay Company officer Peter Fidler on his way to England. He was the surveyor of the Company and a map of the Colony of which a copy is given by us marks the Colony Gardens, where Governor Miles Macdonell lived. This spot they chose, and the locality at the foot of Rupert Street is marked in the City of Winnipeg.
Could we join in the sentinel's cry of 'All is well, although not affording great changes, it might yet be satisfactory in our isolated condition. We have as great variety as generally happens in this sublunary world, of which we here form a true epitome, being composed of men of all countries, religions and tongues." Plainly Governor Macdonell feels his burdens!
He was an artful plotter. His capture of Miles Macdonell gave him great prestige. Besides, he had roused feelings of serious discontent in the minds of nearly all of the Selkirk Colonists. His apparent sincerity and kindness to them had also won their hearts. He was now to make the greatest move in the game.
In January 1814 Governor Macdonell issued a proclamation pronouncing it unlawful for any person who dealt in furs to remove from the colony of Assiniboia supplies of flesh, fish, grain, or vegetable. Punishment would be meted out to those who offended against this official order. The aim of Macdonell was to keep a supply of food in the colony for the support of the new settlers.
In Lord Selkirk's time the factory was more than half a mile from the Bay and lay between the two rivers. Miles Macdonell states that it was on "low, miry ground without a ditch." The stagnant water by which the post was surrounded would be productive of much ill-health, were there a longer summer.
His immediate proposal was to attract a band of redskins to the neighbourhood of Colony Gardens with the avowed intention of creating a panic among the settlers. Shortly after the July meeting at Fort William these two men started on their mission for the Red River. On August 5, while at a stopping-point by the way, Alexander Macdonell dated a letter to a friend in Montreal.
We threw forward our rifles an' cocked 'em; Macdonell he was a big, strong man suddenly upset the table; the savages dashed in the door with sich force that three or four o' 'em fell sprawlin' on the floor. We jumped over these before they could rise, and fired a volley, which sent three or four o' the reptiles behind on their backs.
He was not likely to adopt the name of Pickle before the publication of Smollett's 'Peregrine Pickle' in 1751, though he may have earlier played his infamous part as spy, traitor, and informer. The Family of Glengarry. ALASTAIR RUADH MACDONELL, alias Pickle, Jeanson, Roderick Random, and so forth, died, as we saw, in 1761.
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